1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument, including a sound source module, for generating sounds.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic musical instruments such as synthesizers and the like can generate tones with various kinds of tone colors. When performance of a natural musical instrument is emulated by an electronic musical instrument, it is necessary to make the tone colors to be faithfully imitated to tone colors of the natural musical instrument. In addition, the performer needs to understand characteristics peculiar to the musical instrument and needs to perform while operating user interfaces of the musical instrument (such as, for example, the keyboard, the pitch-bend lever, the modulation lever, the HOLD pedal and the like) during a performance. Therefore, when a performer attempts to imitate performance of a certain musical instrument, using an electronic musical instrument, the performer needs to have sufficient understanding of the characteristics of the musical instrument to be imitated, and is required to have high-level skills in performance technique to make full use of the user interfaces according to the characteristics during performance.
For example, in a strumming performance technique, which is one of the performance techniques for a guitar, the strings are strummed in a manner to generate tones of notes composing a chord in the order of pitches. When a strumming performance is to be imitated by an electronic musical instrument, it is necessary for the performer to depress keys of the keyboard in a manner that tones composing a chord are successively generated from the low pitch side to the high pitch side or, in reverse, to depress keys of the keyboard in a manner that tones are successively generated from the high pitch side to the low pitch side. In addition, the performer needs to instantaneously perform the operation of depressing keys in the pitch order, such that it requires high-level performance keyboard technique to imitate a strumming performance.
Japanese Patent No. JP 3671545, also published as counterpart U.S. Pat. No. 5,804,755, describes a technology to control generation of tones in upstroke and downstroke based on performance data prepared in advance.